NEW YORK -- Six games into their season rivalry, the New York Mets are pretty much owning the Phillies and that's not exactly comforting with what lies ahead this week.
The Mets beat the Phillies for a fourth time in the new season, 10-6, at Citi Field on Sunday night. The Phils ended up losing two of three in the series. They also lost two of three to the Mets three weeks ago at Citizens Bank Park.
Oh, yeah, the Mets come back to Philadelphia for a four-game series beginning Thursday night.
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Sunday night's loss left the Phillies at 11-12 as they head into an off-day on Monday. They have played seven series and won just two of them.
Meanwhile, the Mets have won all seven series they have played. They have the best record in the National League at 16-7.
"That's a good team over there," Bryce Harper said. "We need to take (Monday) off, understand that we need to beat Texas (Tuesday and Wednesday) and be ready for the Mets again."
The Phillies' weekend in New York featured a 4-1 win in the middle game of the series. That was surrounded by them being no-hit on Friday night then wasting four homers (two by Kyle Schwarber and one each by Harper and Johan Camargo) and squandering a pair of one-run leads Sunday night.
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Starter Zach Eflin was presented with a 1-0 lead in the top of the second thanks to a home run from Schwarber, who was Saturday night's hero. The lead quickly vanished in the bottom of the inning when the Mets strung together a pair of singles and a groundout to tie the game. With two outs in the inning, Luis Guillorme doubled over center fielder Odubel Herrera's head for another run.
The Phils took the lead in the seventh inning of Saturday's night game on a walk to J.T. Realmuto followed by a homer from Schwarber. They used the same combination, this time against Max Scherzer, to take a 3-2 lead in the fourth inning. Once again, the lead vanished the next half inning when Eflin gave up a single to Eduardo Escobar and a double to Dom Smith as the Mets tied the game.
"It's frustrating, especially getting two big homers from Schwarbs," Eflin said. "You want to put up zeroes and I wasn't able to do that."
The Mets surged ahead for good in the fifth. They loaded the bases against Eflin with one out on a single, a double and an intentional walk. Jose Alvarado came into the same situation he did the night before and this time, instead of stranding all three runners, allowed them all to score. One of the runs scored when Alvarado crossed up Realmuto. The pitcher thought he heard "sinker" on his PitchCom receiver. Realmuto called for a slider. The other two runs in the inning scored on a hit by Smith, who has 34 RBIs in 203 career at-bats against the Phillies.
Speaking of Phillies killers, Jeff McNeil had his fifth career four-hit game against the Phils and Scherzer pitched six innings of four-run, nine-strikeout ball to improve to 2-0 against the Phils this season and 16-4 lifetime. The Phillies will see Scherzer again later this week.
All of the Phillies' offense came via the long ball, three of them against Scherzer, one against reliever Yoan Lopez. Schwarber has 16 homers and 32 RBIs in 36 career games against the Mets. Harper connected against Scherzer in the sixth. Camargo blasted a two-run shot against Lopez in the ninth.
The game featured a couple of hit batsmen in the late innings. Cristopher Sanchez hit Francisco Lindor in the eighth and Lopez hit Alec Bohm in the ninth. Bohm was hit with a changeup so it was no-harm, no-foul. But earlier in the inning, Lopez appeared to throw at Schwarber. In fact, Phillies manager Joe Girardi thought there was intent in the pitch, but he didn't make a fuss.
"I think they were trying to hit (Schwarber) but that's part of the game," Girardi said. "We didn't try to hit Lindor. I understand you get hit a few times, you start to take exception."
The Mets have been hit a majors-high 20 times.
Things could be interesting at Citizens Bank Park later this week -- even more interesting if the Phillies can figure out how to beat the Mets with some consistency.